Other languages and varieties used

It is very likely that that a portion of the speakers of the local dialects of Bielsko, Biała and their surroundings localities were able to speak standard German. This can be supported by the belief held by Adam Kleczkowski (1920: 3Kleczkowski 1920 / komentarz/comment /
Kleczkowski, Adam 1920. Dialekt Wilamowic w zachodniej Galicji. Fonetyka i fleksja. Kraków: Polska Akademia Umiejętności.
). While it referred strictly to Wilamowice and Wymysorys, it can give much insight into what language was used on a daily basis by the inhabitants of the Bielsko-Biała language enclave:
Whether fighting the Polish language or the literary German language (or, better put, Austrian German) it [Wymysorys] will fall. The one questions that we do not want to answer is when it will it happen and which language will prevail, Polish or German?
The situation in Wilamowice (and to a certain degree in Hałcnów as well) was different. The town was surrounded by Polish-language settlements. Naturally, the language that the Wilamowicean people employed to communicate with them was Polish. Since 1875, Polish was introduced in schools and administrative offices in Wilamowice (Wicherkiewicz, Zieniukowa 2001: 496Wicherkiewicz i Zieniukowa 2001 / komentarz/comment /
Wicherkiewicz, Tomasz i Jadwiga Zieniukowa 2001. „Sytuacja etnolektu wilamowskiego jako enklawy językowej”, w: Barciak 2001: 489-519.
). In church, during mass, Polish was used aside Latin. That is why bilingualism, and sometimes even trilingualism (standard German being the third language) was a commonplace.

Statistics

Number of speakers: native

The 19th century saw census to be conducted on a much larger scale. The first census that would provide detailed information on the demographics of Bielsko, Biała and their surrounding towns and villages was held in 1880. While it did not ask for nationality, it did require an answer to the "language at home" question (Polak 2010: 384Polak 2010 / komentarz/comment /
Polak, Jerzy (red.) 2010. Bielsko-Biała. Monografia miasta. Tom II. Biała od zarania do zakończenia I wojny światowej (1918). Bielsko-Biała: Wydział Kultury i Sztuki Urzędu Miejskiego w Bielsku-Białej.
). The table below presents the results of the 1890, 1910, 1921 and 1943 censuses (Wurbs 1981: 7-8Wurbs 1981 / komentarz/comment /
Wurbs, Gerhard 1981.  Die deutsche Sprachinsel Bielitz-Biala. Eine Chronik. Wien.
).

	1890			1910			1921			1943
Wilamowice	1725	1242	72%	1191	786	66%	1744	52	3%	3157	2336	74%

Based on these sources it can be concluded that prior to the II World War there were no more than 10 thousand speakers of any of the old language varieties spoken around Bielsko, Biała and Wilamowice. This number comprised of the majority of the inhabitants of Wilamowice, Hałcnów and Stare Bielsko, as well as some less numerous speakers of other local dialects. The percentage of those who did not speak either Polish or standard German was likely to be close to null.

Speakers at present

One of the consequences of the II World War was ousting of the majority of the German-speaking population of Bielsko and Biała to Germany and Austria. Only the inhabitants of Wilamowice managed to avoid resettlement. The price they had to be pay for remaining on the land of their forefathers was the ban (perceived as official) on using their Wymysorys language (Wicherkiewicz, Zieniukowa 2001: 497-498Wicherkiewicz i Zieniukowa 2001 / komentarz/comment /
Wicherkiewicz, Tomasz i Jadwiga Zieniukowa 2001. „Sytuacja etnolektu wilamowskiego jako enklawy językowej”, w: Barciak 2001: 489-519.
).
Although there is a number of organizations in Austria and Germany that associate the former residents of the
The number of Wymysiöeryś  speakers began to rapidly drop down after the II World War. Political repressive measures and the cease of intergenerational transmission were the two factors that were decisive in this process.  In 2001 the estimated number of Wymysorys speakers was at 100 (Wicherkiewicz, Zieniukowa: 497Wicherkiewicz i Zieniukowa 2001 / komentarz/comment /
Wicherkiewicz, Tomasz i Jadwiga Zieniukowa 2001. „Sytuacja etnolektu wilamowskiego jako enklawy językowej”, w: Barciak 2001: 489-519.
). Although now, in 2013, there are but 50 people able to speak Wymysorys, it's chances of survival are much higher than a decade earier. What changed is the attitudes people hold towards the language. As Neels has shown (2012Neels 2012 / komentarz/comment /
Neels, Rinaldo 2012. De nakende taaldood van het Wymysojer, een Germaans taaleiland in Zuid-Polen. Een socuilinguïstische analyse. Leuven: Katolieke Universiteit Leuven [nieopublikowana praca doktorska].
) speaking the language is no longer considered shameful nor does it evoke feelings of threat. Speaking Wymysorys became something to be proud of. Despite the fact that the majority of its speakers are people born prior to the II World War, Wymysorys gained two new speakers (thanks to lessons of Józef Gara who has been mentioned in this article before). They have began to actively revitalize their language and one of them, Tymoteusz Król, is an author of a narrative poem (2011Król 2011 / komentarz/comment /
Król, Tymoteusz [2011]. S’ława fum Wilhelm. Wilamowice: Stowarzyszenie na Rzecz Zachowania Dziedzictwa Kulturowego Miasta Wilamowice „Wilamowianie”.
) and, also, a guide for scholars interested in Wymysorys. He also teaches the language to a group of children. Thanks to these recent endevours, the decline of passive speakers of Wymysorys no longer drops so rapidly. According to the most optimistic estimates, their number stands at about 400.